In relation to a recording of an ink jet method, it is already disclosed, for attaining a higher quality in a recorded image (such as an improvement in a character quality and an improvement in a bleeding resistance, to use an ink or an ink set, employing a pigment as a colorant and not employing a reactive liquid (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-198956). There is also proposed an ink which utilizes an ink composition employing a pigment as a colorant and a reaction liquid that renders the colorant in the ink composition unstable, wherein a reaction of two liquids is utilized to coagulate the colorant, thereby suppressing a blotting or a color mixing (bleeding) of the ink on a plain paper (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-63719).
There is also known an ink jet recording apparatus equipped, for maintaining a proper discharge operation from a recording head, with a suction recovery mechanism for forcedly sucking the ink from a discharge port. In such ink jet recording apparatus, a waste ink is absorbed and held in a waste ink absorbent member.
On the other hand, in order to meet requirements for a higher image quality and a higher fastness of recording on a plain paper, inks utilizing a water-insoluble pigment as a colorant are also being developed. Such inks include, for example, a two-liquid ink set utilizing an ink containing a colorant and a second ink that reacts with such ink thereby accelerating a coagulation, and a one-liquid ink showing a high coagulating property immediately after the deposition on a recording medium and not relying on a reactive ink. An ink showing a high coagulating property of the colorant on a paper is preferable for attaining a high quality recording on a plain paper, but such ink will also show a high coagulating property in the waste ink, and it becomes important to efficiently absorb the waste ink, showing such high coagulating property, in an absorbent member.
Technologies relating to the waste ink recovery include a waste ink absorbent member having a hole portion (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-34412), and a structure so constructed that a pigment-based ink and a dye-based ink are dropped in mutually close regions in a waste ink absorbent member to mix both inks, thereby suppressing generation of a coagulated substance of the waste ink (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-225313). It is also proposed, in order to facilitate replacement of a waste ink absorbent member, to provide a part of the waste ink absorbent member with a hole portion (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H6-226995).
As a prior structure for storing the waste liquid, a waste ink tank, having a recess extending in a position including an entrance of the waste liquid, is proposed (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-127493). Also proposed is a waste ink tank, having a penetrating hole in which the waste ink is to be dropped and notched grooves formed radially from the penetrating hole (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-105626).
In the field of the ink jet recording apparatus, there is already known, in order to improve a water resistance and an image quality of an obtained record, a technology of depositing a liquid that reacts with an ink to insolubilize the ink or to generate an agglomeration therein (hereinafter such liquid being called a reaction liquid), onto a recording medium prior to the ink deposition. The reaction liquid is also discharged, as in the case of ink, from a discharge port and generates a waste liquid in order to maintain a proper discharge state, so that, in a system utilizing such reaction liquid, the forcedly discharged reaction liquid is also absorbed and stored, like the ink, in a waste ink absorbent member. In such system, in case the ink and the reaction liquid are mutually contacted on or in the ink absorbent member, a coagulated substance will be formed and the waste reaction liquid or the waste ink may overflow from the ink absorbent member, before it can sufficiently exhibits its absorbing property. Therefore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. H8-118678 and H10-278303 disclose technologies of absorbing the waste reaction liquid and the waste ink from positions, as mutually separate as possible, of the waste ink absorbent member.